The Eel and Sina & The Brown Print

Tonight on this dreary night, we saw two incredible new works from playwright/performers, The Eel and Sina by Jono Soo-Choon and The Brown Print by Unaloto Funaki at Te Oro in Glen Innes.

Part of Auckland Council’s Urbanesia Festival, both works take Pacific Island performance to a postmodern high with Soo-Choon’s narrative interruptions, woven with the usual harmonically divine renditions of traditional Samoan pese by his highly talented all-male choral quartet, followed by Funaki’s pastiche of musical vignettes, underpinned by a tale of how his character, Semisi dealt with schoolyard bullies, with a particularly hilarious tale of how no one should play with his “ball from the mall”.

A definite highlight was a pseudo shot-by-shot fan parody or Aunty Sia by Unaloto, which had the crowd in fits and tears of laughter.